Dots and Dashes Cowl #3

Just in time for Valentine's Day, a pink version of the Dots and Dashes Cowl. This one includes the following yarns:

Inca Gold merino in red

Great American Yarns Superfine merino and Silk  in pink

Zara DK merino in pink

Zauberball Crazy wool and nylon graduated pinks

Malabrigo Arroyo 

 Chic Sheep merino in Dragon Fruit (!)

My hand dyed speckled sock yarn, held double and Stunning and Single, also hand dyed in pinky white.

While knitting this cowl I watched Youtube knitting videos and got inspired to organize my yarn stash. Would you believe there are about 15 different knitters who have vlogged about getting their stash under control, and of course they had way less yarn than I have. So guilt set in and the time was right to do mine.

This was my yarn stash three houses ago, and was greatly reduced when I gave a huge amount to our church yarn collection. I got rid of a lot of acrylics, cottons, and scratchy wools. It seemed to have not made a dent when I was finished, so then I sold a bunch off from the blog, and what happened next...I bought more yarn. Geessh!

This time I began looking for more containers, but whoa! no, this wasn't gonna help. What I really needed was to redistribute it all into bins of like fibers, weights or brands and then using a whiteboard marker, I wrote the contents on the bins. The most important thing I learned from the videos was to consider using the under bed space to store these remaining bins. I had previously kept my yarn in the cold, really badly lit garage, and that is not conducive to finding just what I needed. I've done that now, and feel so satisfied. There are still a few bins in the garage, but so much easier to see what those hold. Looking at this photo, I really do have a much smaller stash and what is currently in use is a much better quality than the quantity version shown here. I am a certified yarn snob.